Habs

The Montreal Canadiens paid a visit to the Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for a meeting with the Pittsburgh Penguins. After finding themselves up 4-2 to start the third, the Canadiens had trouble holding the lead, and ended up with a 5-4 shootout loss.

The first period opened up with Lars Eller scoring his ninth of the season just 34 seconds into the first period, giving the Canadiens an early lead. The rough stuff started soon after as Max Paciorett...

Earlier today, I asked twitter if it was too soon to compare this Habs season to the cruise ship tragedy in Italy. Consensus was that it was probably in poor taste. Obviously, not because it's too soon to give up on the Canadiens, but because of the tragedy itself.

Instead, we came up with a few other disasters that sum up what Montreal Canadiens fans are feeling right now, as their team sits in 12th place in the East, and only two points away from being the absolute worst team in the conference. You may be more used to seeing these types of things over at our sister-site, Better With Popcorn, but feel free to let us know which one you think best represents the 2011-12 se...

It was bound to happen after the comments he made yesterday. For all intents and purposes, Mike Cammalleri had punched his ticket out of Montreal. But no one thought it would happen this quickly, and definitely not this way.

On Thursday night, following the Habs’ 2-1 loss to the Boston Bruins, the team announced that it had traded their former star free agent acquisition to the Calgary Flames, in exchange for forward Rene Bourque. The deal also included goaltender Karri Ramo (currently playing in Europe) and a fifth round pick in 2012 heading to Calgary, with prospect Patrick Holland of the Tri-City Americans and a second round pick in 2013 coming back to Montreal...

Among all the controversies, all the language debates, all these trivial issues that seem to plague many people in and around the city of Montreal this hockey season (and that I’ve been categorically trying to ignore), there’s an overlying issue that tends to get swept under the rug more often than not with this team.

The Habs just suck.

Blame it on the Anglophone coach, blame it on the incompetent GM or the face-saving owner, but when push comes to shove, the onus of the win-loss record and performance of the Montreal Canadiens falls squarely on the shoulders of the players, and the players only.

The Montreal Canadiens will be in Boston, Massachusetts on Thursday evening for another heated showdown with the rival Boston Bruins. These two teams are on complete opposite ends of the standings, with the Bruins, who have won ten of their last twelve games, sitting pretty at the top of the Northeastern Conference. The Canadiens have only won four of their last twelve games, are sitting dead last in the conference, and sixteen points behind the Bruins.

That being said, games between these two bitter rivals are always unpredictable. While logic would dicta...

Expectations have been sky high for Lars Eller ever since he came to Montreal along with Ian Schultz in return for netminder Jaroslav Halak. It's hard to say that those expectations are unreasonable, given the remarkable playoff performance of Halak during the 2010 NHL Playoffs, which saw the Canadiens go on an incredible run to the Eastern Conference Finals after knocking off the Washington Capitals and Pittsburgh Penguins. That being said, up until this point, Lars Eller has shown great strides in his development, and is quickly making people forget about the doubts they had when the trade was first announced.

Josh Gorges' belated Christmas gift finally arrived on New Year's day, as the Canadiens' defenseman signed a six-year contract extension.

The deal will pay the Kelowna, British Columbia native $23.4 million, or an average of $3.9 million a year through the 2017-18 season. Gorges signs this deal after somewhat of a controversy over the summer, after Gorges and his agent, Kevin Epp, filed for arbitration only to sign a one-year deal worth $2.5 million mere days before the hearing.

While considered fair and deserved, Gorges' $2.5M salary was a significant increase over his $1.1M cap hit from his prior 3-ye...

The Montreal Canadiens finish up a six-game road trip in Sunrise, Florida tonight as they face the Panthers in the BankAtlantic Center. This road-trip has been a miserable one for the Canadiens, as they have dropped four out of five games so far. Tonight they will try to end 2011 with a win, something that hasn't come easy to them this season.

In seasons past, this game might be an easy win for the Canadiens, but not this year. This year, the Canadiens (14-17-7) have been around the bottom of the Eastern Conference for the majority of the season. Meanw...

A short break over Christmas seems to be just what the Montreal Canadiens needed, as they bounced back in a big way with a 6-2 win over the eighth place Ottawa Senators on Tuesday night. After a five game losing streak the Habs finally won a game, giving interim head coach Randy Cunneyworth his first victory as the man in charge behind the Canadiens bench.

The first period began with the Senators controlling the game for the most part. Just two minutes in they jumped out to an early lead with a goal from Zach Smith. The lead didn't last for long thoug...